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Updated: May 4, 2025
Asshur-nazir-pal's attack seems to have surprised the chief of the Hittites in a time of profound peace. Sangar, King of Carchemish, allowed the passage of the Euphrates to take place without disputing it, and opened to the Assyrians the gates of his capital.
As soon as we topped the swell of the ground, we saw the enemy bolting in twos and threes from the nearest sangar, now about two hundred yards off, and presently there came a rush right across our front. We opened fire, trying volleys at first, but the Sappers were useless at that, never having had any training, so independent firing was ordered.
Then the nasty thing exploded in his face, and he lost one eye and is otherwise a good deal cut about. In the afternoon I rode out again to the howitzers on Waggon Hill. The 6 in. gun which they command from their invisible station has not fired for six days. The Boer gunners dare not set it to work for fear of the 85lb. shells which are fired the moment Boers are seen in the sangar.
Orders were given to cease all further active operations on a large scale in Palestine, and to send to France all the men that could be spared. Accordingly, there was no alternative but to consolidate, to heavily wire and sangar in upon the line that had been already reached, making such tactical readjustments as were necessary.
On the left was a short sangar or breastwork of stones, which afforded both protection and cohesion of forces, but between that and the village the men sheltered behind rocks and in the natural depressions of the ground, thereby making a line which it was very difficult to keep intact. The Battalion had taken over from the Australians by 01.00 and at 03.00 the enemy began his attack.
"It is a small thing, Huzoor," said the wounded soldier, looking upwards to Luffe, who stood above him; "a very small thing," but even as he spoke pain cut the words short. "Yes, a small thing"; Luffe did not speak the words, but he thought them. He turned away and walked back again across the roof. The new sangar would not be built that night.
A good deal of discussion went on as to whether the enemy's main defence was on the left bank, in which case we should have to attack across the river, or on the right bank, in which case the present visible sangar was a flanking bastion. At last someone suggested tea, so the meeting broke up. Colonel Kelly and I stayed behind.
How the name of Shinar came to be transferred from Mesopotamia to Babylonia is a puzzle. The Mesopotamian Shinar is nowhere near the Babylonian frontier. It lies in a straight line westward of Mosul and the ancient Nineveh, and not far from the banks of the Khabur. Can its application to Babylonia be due to a confusion between Sumer and Sangar?
Then came a larger puff of smoke and a murmur from the men round me, as a shell pitched across the river and burst over a sangar. It was as pretty a sight as one could wish for, and I felt as if I should have been in a stall at Drury Lane. I could have stopped and watched the show with pleasure.
That sangar was a death-trap to its garrison their only line of escape was across some open, shaley slopes within four hundred yards of our firing line, and the Levies were now working along the hill, and would catch them in the sangar if they didn't clear out.
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